


Not So Alone

by Saki_Lyn



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: All Alone, All Alone (song), Comedy, Cute, Cutesy, F/M, Fun. (band) - Freeform, Funny, Inspired by Music, Moscow, One Shot, Originally Posted on deviantART, Reader-Insert, Russia, Second person POV, Some Nights, Some Nights (album), Windup doll
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-04
Updated: 2015-08-04
Packaged: 2018-04-12 21:12:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4494921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saki_Lyn/pseuds/Saki_Lyn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When your Russian husband temporarily kicks you out of your Moscow apartment after a spat, your initial reaction is to be miffed. But then you find the perfect little present to knit the two of you together again: an antique windup doll named Ksenia.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not So Alone

The door slams in your face with a resounding BANG.

A puff of scathing anger escapes your lips.

Whatever. No matter what happens next, you promise yourself you’ll never give.

It’s his fault. He started it. You’re innocent. Devoid of blame. Your conscience is clean.

But why do you feel so dejected? And, dare you say it… guilty?

It began as a simple, trivial argument. Who forgot to water the flowerbox sunflowers? It hardly mattered; nothing would change the blatant fact of their wilty-ness other than _watering_ them, but you guess the two of you were just bottled up, waiting for the chance to disagree. Then the Baltics had the bad sense to chime in, all on your side, of course, putting Ivan into an even worse mood. He hates it when the lot of you gang up on him. It belittles him.

One thing led to another, and eventually, he tossed you out of the flat. Literally. He tossed you. Not maliciously – even when he’s irked, he reigns in the force of his true anger – but it still stung. To be tossed out of your own flat. Not a fun experience.

So, here you are. On the streets. Begging for bread.

Well, okay. Things haven’t gotten _that_ drastic yet, but you like to season a little drama into this tale here and there. Adds intrigue.

Anyway. The streets. It’s not horribly unpleasant to be homeless, to tell the truth. At least on the first day. You feel liberated as you prowl the lesser known avenues of downtown Moscow. Sure, there are scary places here, places young lassies like yourself should do their utmost to avoid, but as this city also happens to be your _dear_ husband’s heart, you know it rather well, and you know where not to go.

High up on the list are the clubs and bars…

Not knowing what else to do with yourself, you make your way towards a little tourist trap not far from Red Square. Souvenir stores in Russia are rather frightening. Like practically everything else in the world’s largest nation, they’re… quite large. Most of them are filled to overflowing with matryoshki and khokhloma (say that three times fast – clears the sinuses right up), but occasionally they contain something unusual. Something even you, the lifetime companion of Russia and all things Russian, haven’t seen before.

Such is the case in the store you wander in today.

After perusing through the usual assortment of Harry Potter matryoshki and post cards with deceptively cheery photographs, your eyes fall upon a new treasure.

She isn’t very tall – four and a half inches at most – and technically she isn’t new. Her dented tin clothes and façade of chipped paint betray the years she has spent in the hands of a previous owner. But that matters not to you. To you, she is the loveliest little thing you have seen in some time. You swipe her up and buy her without a second thought.

Okay, so you know it looks bad: you just wasted valuable food money in the face of an uncertain future. But you can’t help it. The way her tiny tin hands ripped your soul apart from the moment your eyes met. It’s destiny!

You tear her from the plastic bubble packing the cashier had senselessly wrapped her in and expose her to the glow of the midday Moscow overcast. You decide to name her Ksenia. Foreigner. Because most people around these parts aren’t made of tin, so she must be pretty foreign.

Your darling Ksyusha is a wind-up toy. By the looks of her, she’s at least as old as the Soviet Union is dead, maybe as much as fifty, sixty years. Her metallic blonde hair is adorned by a red kokoshnik, and the rest of her is draped in a simply patterned sarafan, all bright hues of red, blue, and gold. Or at least, they _would_ have been bright, had your sweetie not been drenched in a discomfiting layer of decades-old grime. But no matter. She’s still the loveliest little thing you have seen.

You wind up Ksenia experimentally and set her on the cobblestone street. She totters around uncertainly for a bit, but after a little encouragement, she sways in time to a tinny tune projected by an unseen musical mechanism. You smile fondly down at her. The tune is a lullaby Ivan taught you a while ago. Hearing it again brings back charming memories of when he used to sing you to sleep.

That’s right, world. Big bad Ivan Braginsky can sing. Lullabies. Like a boss.

If bosses sang lullabies.

After Ksenia concludes her show, you pick her up and hold her on your palm. She has such a darling little face. You wish your face were half as cute. She even has a pair of blush dots accentuating her cheeks. Maybe you should paint blush dots on your cheeks. Maybe then Ivan would forgive you for not watering his precious sunflowers.

Not that you’re admitting to anything.

Looking around, you notice that you’ve accidentally (or subconsciously) stumbled into the most famous place in all of Russia, his heart of hearts: Red Square. Home of St. Basil’s Cathedral, the GUM building, the Kremlin, and whatever other over-the-top ornamentations the big idiot has planted here. All around you, people mill like chickens in the farmyard, pecking for Facebook photos. Normally, you don’t like crowds, but today you could care less! Today you are with your dear sweet Ksyushka. And nothing else in all the world matters but her vibrant metal smile.

You dance around Red Square for a spell, winding Ksenia up over and over and watching her dance. You celebrate the tinny tune by clapping my hands in time, all the while beaming up at the cloud-smothered sky. It’s a good day. It’s a good day. How could you have ever thought otherwise?

Oh right.

Ivan’s pissed at you.

You frown at Ksenia as she finishes her latest bout of swaying. Then you get an idea: what if you took her home with you and showed her to him? You bet that’d wipe your little disagreement clean off the board! Ksenia could do it. Ksenia has mystical magical powers of healing awesomeness, after all. Must be a Russian wind-up doll thing.

Happiness restored, you bound out of Red Square in the direction of Ivan’s (and your… but you’ve already forgotten…) apartment. You have an actual house in the countryside – several, in fact – but sometimes, during the height of political crisi-you mean, activity, it helps for Ivan to be closer to the Kremlin. Hence, thanks to the recent Ukrainian dilemma, he currently resides in a rather well-to-do flat in one of the slightly less shady parts of town.

The doorman lets you in without a fuss. Apparently Ivan’s displeasure with your person wasn’t extreme enough to merit the effort of recruiting Alyosha’s loyalty. In other words: he’s not _that_ pissed at you. Things can still be mended. With a little assistance from the world’s tiniest, tinniest goddess.

You knock politely, but with enough urgency to bring him to the door. Ivan has been known to ignore more timid knockers. You suspect it’s part of his ploy to de-timidify you. You press your ear and listen through the varnished oak. It sounds relatively quiet in there. No TV. No blaring Linkin Park. No strangled cries of a certain trio getting pounded to dust. Those are all good signs.

“What do you want,” a voice demands flatly.

You look up from your crouched, pressed-ear position and meet the eyes of the person who had just this morning tossed you out on your butt without so much as a goodbye kiss.

Yeah, _that_ person.

“I bought you a present,” you offer, your voice cracking out slightly higher than a pubescent chipmunk’s. You produce Ksenia from your pocket and hold her up for him to admire. “A peace offering.”

“What the hell is that,” Ivan demands, just as flatly as before.

“She’s a windup toy.”

“What does it do.”

“ _She_ dances to music.” You make your hand into a mini stage and wind her up. “Watch.”

The tinny little tune plays as Ksenia keeps the time, smiling brightly at the grumpy man all the while. Ivan merely scowls back. You know he knows the song, but he obviously doesn’t want to show it. Not now.

After your little dove has worked her magic, you grab his fist and try to hand Ksyushka to him, but he won’t uncurl his fingers. “I bought her for you.” Slight lie, but hey. “A present. Her name’s Ksenia.”

“I do not care what its name is. I do not need a toy.”

“Yes you do. I can obviously tell: what you need most in this world is a windup doll.”

“It is creepy.”

“You’re one to talk.”

 “It is filthy. You must have found it in the trash.”

“Excuse me? Were you not listening? I _bought_ her. With _my_ money earned by _my_ burdensome labor?”

“It is revolting. Besides, I have no room for trivial things like that.”

Him being a millennia-aged Nation, you can understand that, but you’re as stubborn as dandelion roots, so you refuse to let him have the last word. “You’re just saying that because you don’t want to admit that Ksenia is the remedy for your rancid meanness disease!” Rancid meanness disease? You facepalm internally. “Now, excuse me while I take this shattered heart of mine and piece it back together with my only true friend!”

Before Ivan can say another word, you race down the stairs and out the door, leaving poor, befuddled Alyosha in the wake of your tailwind yet again.

You find refuge on a bench in Alexandrovksy Garden, turning Ksenia over and over in your hand.

“You’d tell me you love me, wouldn’t you?” you question her. “If you could talk? Because you do, don’t you? I’m all you want?”

Ksenia’s tin eyes stare at you disturbingly blankly in respond.

“You love me, don’t you? Then say something!” You toss her into a proximate patch of grass in frustration.

A nearby mother glances worriedly at your glowering expression. “Time to go, Kolya,” she urges, dragging a little boy away from you, the scary madwoman.

You mope with your elbows on your knees, face in your hands. “I just feel so all alone,” You sigh to no one.

o-o-o-o-o

Ivan finds you several hours later, fast asleep and drooling on a park bench. Your little toy winks at him from a patch of grass. He picks it up. Its head has busted off. Luckily, it’s world summit season, and Ludwig is currently staying in a nearby hotel, and he knows how to fix little trinkets like this. Surely he wouldn’t mind doing Ivan a quick evening favor, if asked nicely…

Slinging you over one shoulder and clasping your doll – Ksenia, is it?- in his free hand, he makes his way back to the flat. After depositing your sleeping body onto its rightful half of your bed, he heads off in pursuit of a certain skillful German.

Let’s hope he packed his tools.

o-o-o-o-o

Thanks to some tactful persuasion on his part, not only was Ivan able to convince Ludwig to mend the broken doll, he also managed to score a second, _custom_ windup toy. Free of charge! Through some sort of heavily suspicious German magic, Ludwig has both completed by midnight. Unfortunately, when he hands the dolls to Ivan, he looks terribly unrested. Ivan makes a concerned comment about this, but Ludwig merely glares. Oh, those strange Germans!

Once back home, Ivan arranges the three dolls on the nightstand beside your sleeping form. Behind them, he slides a note which reads:

_Dear Sunflower,_

_I am sorry for how I acted yesterday morning. And yesterday afternoon. And yesterday evening (you were not here, but I was quite unpleasant, I assure you. The walls were most annoyed.) I thought it over long and hard and decided it was I who forgot to water the flowerbox sunflowers after all. These three dolls are my apology gift. Ksenia was broken, so I had Ludwig fix her, as well as make a second, special doll. I do not know how well his craftsmanship lived up to his name, but she is supposed to look like you. As cute as Ksenia is, you are much cuter._

_Love,_

_Ivan_

The Country settles into bed feeling a little better. He leans over and gently strokes your hair. As he strokes, he sings a faint lullaby, the same little song Ksenia sways to when wound up. He swears he sees the dolls’ metallic smiles through the dark, but no matter. Just something to get used to. Like peach fuzz or faceless mannequins.

Before drifting off completely, he whispers to you: “Not so alone after all.”

**Author's Note:**

> I fell in love with the song "All Alone" by Fun. and had to write this little piece of fan fiction to celebrate :P  
> If you're curious what Ksenia looks like: http://www.caesarscoins.com/bn378-01.jpg  
> The song that inspired me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNVIn-QS4DE 
> 
> Enjoy the craziness~


End file.
